The 2021 Classic Choir brought musicians and singers of all ages and all levels together. One family who were inspired to join were a beautiful trio of singers, a Manchu family, who now live in Melbourne. Father, Liu Jianping 刘建平 (known as Jack), his wife Liu Meiying 刘美英 (Mary) and their daughter Liu Zhuo 刘斫 (Jolin) heard about the Classic Choir on ABC’s WeChat account.
The trio usually busk on Swanston Street in Melbourne, performing their own compositions in Chinese, connecting with people through their music and honing their craft.
In an interview about their love of music and love of the Choir, the family members all praised each other. Dad Jack started writing songs in his 50s and he’s been teaching his wife to sing (Jolin joked that her mum was ‘tone dead’ when she started singing but she’s much better now). Both parents showered their daughter with praise too. “She’s talented, her voice is great and soothing” says Mary of her daughter. Jolin added, “Music is the bond of our family. We could talk about music all the time.”
The chance to sing in a choir together, and with other people around the country, was a huge draw for this family. But more than that it was Katie Noonan’s song and lyrics that spoke to them. Quoting the lyric, ‘Family is the bond that keeps us safe’, Jolin added “what a beautiful lyric. We have so many pressures in life, but family give us peace of mind, give us the sense of happiness. It’s exactly what family means to me.”
They learnt the Classic Choir song, ‘All is Love’, very quickly. They downloaded sheet music both in English and Chinese and Mary was up through the night translating the Chinese into English so she could sing the words. “My parents don’t speak English and had to look up English words in the dictionary so they could follow the English singing demo then sing the Chinese lyrics into English.” And Jolin wanted them to record in one take! “I said if we don’t do it in one go, we will lose the energy and spirit!” Mary added, “This song touched my heart. The more I sing it, the more I like it.”
The family are originally from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region, and are Manchu, an ethnic minority in China. In their video submission they all wore traditional dress, bought from a shop in Inner Mongolia, with many design elements of their cultural ethnicity. They always wear these special outfits during festivals and any cultural celebrations. They’ve worn them for Lunar New Year, Christmas (when they moved to Australia), the Dragonboat Festival, and when they were busking.
Jolin first came to Australia alone, to study IT. Her parents thought of her every day and the separation was very hard on all three of them. It was their distance that inspired Jack to write a song for their daughter, in her new city, which he called ‘The Rains of Melbourne’.
The family were reunited a few years ago and now live together, writing original music, busking, and they often sing for their local Chinese community. Jack is a multi-instrumentalist; he plays a Hulusi (a traditional Chinese instrument, a kind of gourd flute) and Morin khuur (horsehead fiddle, a traditional Mongolian instrument) as well as piano, bamboo flute and western flute.
They hope to get back to busking soon. But they don’t busk for money – for them, it’s a way to share music with people. And to bring to life that feeling that music evokes – its ability to connect us to each other across culture, across language and across any distance.
See Mary and Jolin in the final Classic Choir video, which premieres Katie Noonan's All is Love at 8:15am Friday 17 December AEDT.
Story by Michaela Kalowski. Interview and translation by Huimian Cotton Wang.